Every now and then I read through the book Silence of the Heart, Dialogues with Robert Adams, who explains that this physical experience and the human egos are in a state of trance. Adams stresses the need to wake up to divine consciousness. I came across a particularly interesting paragraph, reading:

“Would hypnosis be useful as a means to breaking the hypnosis [trance]?

(Adams answers:) “No. Because hypnosis simply contacts the subconscious. It reinforces your ego. You’re already hypnotized. So you don’t want to double your hypnosis. Because then you have to get rid of the hypnotic trance as well as the waking trance.”

This idea is comparable to ideas from 19^th century spiritual leader, Mary Baker Eddy.

We read in 21^st Century Science and Health:

“Observations of the workings of hypnosis, the collective unconscious, or crowd thinking, offer convincing evidence that they are not remedial agents. I am convinced that the effects of outside mortal mental influences on those who practice it, and on the people who do not resist it, lead to moral and physical death.

“If hypnotism seems to heal disease—or mental collective noise seems to alleviate loneliness—this appearance is deceptive, since error cannot remove the effects of error. Discomfort under error is preferable to comfort. In every instance, the effect of suggestion is just the effect of illusion. Any seeming benefit derived from mental manipulation is proportional to one’s faith in magic.

“The process, either unconsciously or consciously, of thought manipulation has no scientific foundation, for God is uninfluenced and always conscious—always consciously governing all that is real, harmonious, and eternal. God expresses divine consciousness in us.”